Wijdan Ali, curator and historian as well as painter, was born in Baghdad and received a degree in history at Beirut College for Women, and a doctorate in Islamic art at the University of London. For much of the 1960s, HRH Princess Ali served her country in diplomatic posts (often as Jordan's first female delegate), and she is currently Director of Research and Studies at Amman's Institute of Diplomacy.

 

In this decade, she has been equally active as an educator in Islamic art, teaching at Yarmouk University, and the Higher Institute for Islamic Art and Architecture (which she helped found) at Al al-Bayt University.  Ali has also served as Editor of Islamic art for the Encyclopedia of Islamic Culture, and has published widely on Islamic art and modern Jordanian art in Arabic and English.